THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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SOME    FAMILY    LETTERS 

OF 

W.    M.    THACKERAY 


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SOME    FAMILY    LETTERS 

OF 

W.    M.    THACKERAY 

TOGETHER   WITH 

RECOLLECTIONS 

BY    HIS    KINSWOMAN 

BLANCHE   WARRE   CORNISH 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

MDCCCCXI 


COPYRIGHT,    I91I,    BY    BLANCHE    WARRE    CORNISH 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 


CONTENTS 


I.  Thackeray  and  his  Father's  Family  .  1 

II.  Two  First  Cousins  of  Thackeray's  .  43 

III.  Thackeray  at  Palace  Green    .          .  53 

IV.  Last  Months       ....  67 


iJ7515 


I 

THACKERAY  AND  HIS  FATHER'S 
FAMILY 


THACKERAY  AND   HIS  FATHER'S 

FAMILY 

THE  present  writer  cannot  have  been 
very  old  when  she  first  remembers 
Mr.  Thackeray  in  Paris,  because  when  he 
offered  her  his  arm  on  the  Boulevard  de  la 
Madeleine,  and  said  they  would  be  taken  for 
husband  and  wife,  she  felt  sorry  that  French 
people  should  see  such  a  tall,  stately  Eng- 
lishman mated  to  such  an  insignificant  little 
wife.  Her  hand  went  straight  up  from  the 
shoulder  to  rest  upon  his  arm,  aunts  were  left 
behind,  the  green  Boulevard  trees  stretched 
before,  the  stroll  seemed  long  with  gay  vistas. 
It  cannot,  however,  have  extended  far,  for 
there  was  a  halt  before  the  windows  of  the 
famous  confiseur,  Boissier,  on  the  next  Bou- 
levard —  named  des  Capucines.  Boissier's 
boxes  lay  on  a  line  with  her  eyes,  and  in  the 
boxes  were  the  bonbons  in  patterns. 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

*'  Don't  you  wish  for  that  lovely  blue  box 
full  of  chocolates  ?  " 

"Oh  yes!" 

I  recall  my  confusion  still  when  Mr. 
Thackeray  dived  into  the  shop,  paid  many 
francs,  and  ordered  the  large  box  to  be  sent 
home,  as  the  result  of  my  indiscreet  excla- 
mation. 

After  this,  adoration  passed  all  bounds. 
There  is  a  straight-backed  armchair  of  the 
Louis  Philippe  period  in  my  possession,  with 
cushioned  arms  on  which  I  used  to  perch  be- 
side my  grandmother,  Mrs.  Ritchie,  who  was 
the  great  novelist's  aunt.  In  that  **  Grand- 
mother's chair  "  now  sat  Mr.  Thackeray, 
very  fresh,  very  wise-looking  behind  his 
spectacles,  very  attractive  with  his  thick 
curling  hair  and  rosy  cheeks.  There  was  an 
element  of  mystery  about  him  fascinating 
even  to  childhood.  He  always  seemed  alone. 
He  had  just  been  in  America.  He  was  on  his 
way  to  Rome.  He  was  meteoric.  He  was 
exceedingly  sad  and  silent.    He  was  won- 

C   4   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

drously  droll.  Above  all,  he  was  kind,  so 
that  the  child  perched  beside  him  ques- 
tioned him :  — 

Is  you  good  ?  "  ( from  the  perch) . 
Not  so  good  as  I  should  like  to  be  " 
(from  Mr.  Thackeray). 

"Is  you  clever?" 

"  Well,  I've  written  a  book  or  two.  Per- 
haps I  am  rather  clever." 

"  Is  you  pretty?" 

*'  Oh,  no,  no,  no  !  JVo  !  JVb  /  JVo  /  "  (I 
recall  Mr.  Thackeray  bursting  out  laugh- 
ing- ) 

"  I  think  you  's  good,  and  you  's  clever, 

and  you 's  pretty." 

Thackeray  and  childhood  are  linked 
wherever  "The  Rose  and  the  Ring  "  is  read 
in  Enghsh  nurseries  and  schoolrooms.  It 
was  to  be  drawn  and  written  in  Rome  for 
Edith  Story  (Countess  Peruzzi)  the  follow- 
ing New  Year.  At  the  time  of  which  I  write 
pictures  were  drawn  for  us  Indian  children 
in  Paris.  The  occult  Morale  of  Fairy  Black- 

[5] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

Stick  was  somehow  impersonated  by  Mr. 
Thackeray  in  these  pencil  sketches,  though 
to  be  sure  he  dealt  poetic  justice  with  his  pen- 
cil only  in  humorous  moral  to  small  heroines 
in  well-appointed  nurseries.  In  one  of  these 
faded  sketches  he  appears  above  the  steam 
of  the  evening  tub  looking  gravely  through 
his  spectacles  across  a  column  of  vapour  to 
repress  an  uproar.  In  a  pen-and-ink  sketch 
of  that  time  in  my  possession,  a  radiant  little 
girl,  who  is  a  foretaste  of  Betsinda,  and  a 
lank-haired  child  in  a  shawl  inhabit  one  slum. 
But  she  with  the  curls  had  secured  a  basket 
and  a  parasol.  And  she  rides  in  the  basket  like 
any  Park  beauty,  and  holds  her  parasol  aslant 
and  knows  her  own  dignity.  And  the  other 
is  the  more  wretched,  and  she  carries  a  thin 
baby  and  a  jug  to  the  public-house.  And 
in  this  study  of  temperaments  we  feel  that 
when  the  child  with  the  shawl  is  a  grown 
woman  she  never  will  keep  her  eyes  from 
envying  a  rival's  happiness. 

The   moral  conflict    of  everyday  life. 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

whether  of  rich  or  poor,  of  man  or  child, 
was  never  far  from  Thackeray's  thoughts. 
And  he  ever  seemed  to  remember  not  to 
judge  lest  we  be  judged.  Once,  on  a  later 
visit  to  Paris,  naughtiness  in  the  schoolroom, 
bewildering  element  to  the  culprit,  was  pun- 
ished. A  "  German  tree  "  party  was  pro- 
hibited at  Christmas-time.  Mr.  Thackeray 
called  and  was  told.  A  kind  aunt,  conscious 
of  over-severity,  meant  him  to  beg  the 
prisoner  off.  But  there  was  awful  silence 
from  the  straight-backed  chair.  The  world 
seemed  to  be  coming  to  an  end ;  the  silence 
was  felt  by  aunt  and  niece.  Grave  Mr. 
Thackeray  did  not  ask  for  another  chance. 
But  something  was  said  about  the  necessity 
for  discipline,  and  he  spoke  without  a  smile : 

*T  know  some  folks  who  were  naughty 
when  they  were  young  and  are  good  now." 

Did  he  mean  himself?  Something  in 
his  manner  suggested  it  and  the  disgrace 
seemed  a  bit  lifted.  But  when  the  accused 
went  to  the  party  —  for  the  informing  of 

[   7] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

Mr.  Thackeray  had  apparently  been  con- 
sidered a  sufficient  shock — the  sting  re- 
mained, he  had  not  interfered. 

His  dehberation  was  awful.  One  day  the 
cat  of  the  household  seemed  to  come  in  for 
his  psychology.  She  leapt  on  to  the  deserted 
breakfast-table  and  stole  a  bit  offish.  Thack- 
eray stood  alone  in  the  room  (except  for  the 
child).  He  watched  the  cat's  movements  con- 
templatively and  then  exclaimed  with  tragic 
intensity:  — 

«'Que  voulez-vous?  C'est  plus  fort 
qu'elle!" 

In  that  Paris  home  of  my  grandmother  of 
which  the  letters  that  follow  are  the  bequest, 
many  literary  souvenirs  were  gathered.  But 
intimate  things  represent  Thackeray  better 
than  "  gold-dust  swept  from  the  salons,"  — 
Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning's  description  of 
his  conversation  in  Rome.  In  the  following 
trait  the  home  detail  must  appear.  "The 
Newcomes"  was  finished  in  our  house.  My 
aunts  left  two  white-capped  maids  for  the 

[8] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

service  of  Mr.  Thackeray  and  his  daughters 
in  the  sunny  apartment  through  September. 
And  there  he  described  the  old  cook,  An- 
nette, "  coming  into  the  salon  one  day  to  find 
me  blubbering  in  a  corner.  I  was  writing  the 
last  page  of  *  Newcome.'  The  death  of  Col- 
onel Newcome  could  not  have  been  written 
without  tears,  any  more  than  the  parting  of 
Hector  and  Andromache.  But  as  for  Annette, 
the  witness  of  a  novelist's  emotion,  she  kept 
her  comments  on  auteurs  anglais  in  the  clas- 
sic days  of  the  appartement  for  the  subject  of 
their  gigantic  tallness.  *  Monsieur  Thack- 
eray etait  tres  grand  et  de  belle  carrure,'  but 
his  friend,  <  Monsieur  Higgins  (Jacob  Om- 
nium ) ,  etait  encore  plus  grand !  C'etaientdes 
geants  et  de  beaux  hommes  pourtant.'  "  ' 

'  Thackeray  is  the  only  Englishman  of  letters  who  had 
and  retains  a  popular  name  with  the  Parisians  at  large. 
The  restaurant  where  his  portrait  in  oils,  as  a  young  man, 
is  preserved  in  a  small  panelled  dining-room  isTherion's, 
Boulevard  Saint-Germain  ( Rive  Gauche ) .  Outside  the 
restaurant  hangs  a  sign.  It  represents  the  present  Therion 
in  the  company  of  the  novelist. 

^9] 


SOME   FAMILY   LETTERS 

The  following  letter  was  written  at  my 
grandmother's  death  to  her  eldest  daughter 
Charlotte.  Mrs.  Ritchie  was  the  youngest 
daughter  of  William  Makepeace  Thack- 
eray, of  Hadley,  Herts ;  he  is  buried  beside 
the  old  church  there.  She  was  the  favourite 
sister  of  Richmond  Thackeray,  the  novelist's 
father.  She  has  often  been  described.'  Her 
eldest  son  William,  mentioned  in  the  letter, 
was  the  pride  and  glory  of  her  last  years;  my 
father  was  Advocate-General  with  a  great 
practice  at  the  Calcutta  bar  at  the  age  of 
thirty-eight.  We,  his  children,  had  been  sent 
home  to  her  care.  And  as  his  success  crowned 
all  her  hopes,  so  too  the  fame  of  her  loved 
brother  Richmond's  son  was  her  joy.  Mr. 
Ritchie,  my  grandfather,  who  died  in  1848, 
had  shared  her  trust  in  the  young  William 

'  In  Biographical  Introduction  to  Ballads^  etc. ;  in 
Mr.  Walter  Sichel's  Sheridan  (she  knew  the  wit  in  her 
uncle  Mr.  Peter  Moore's  house  in  Westminster  as  a  girl ) ; 
in  Sir  William  Hunter's  Thackerays  in  India  as  one  of 
the  band  of  high-spirited  brothers  and  sisters  brought  up 
at  Hadley  Green  and  afterwards  distinguished. 

C  10] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Makepeace  when  he  chose  Hterature  for  his 
profession  and  came  and  went  in  their  house 
at  Paris  hke  the  Zeitgeist  of  the  thirties. 

Rome,  Feb.  6,  1854. 

My  dearest  Charlotte,  —  We  have 
just  received  your  letter,  and  I  feel  now 
more  even  than  at  our  departure  that  we 
ought  not  to  have  come  away  and  should 
have  stayed  with  you.  The  comfort  and 
companionship  might  not  have  been  much, 
but  would  have  helped  some  little.  We  shall 
be  in  Paris  soon  after  this  letter:  for  the 
girls  agreed  that  they  could  not  bear  to  take 
tours  of  pleasure,  and  think  of  you  and  dear 
Jane  alone  in  your  affliction.  We  set  off  by 
a  steamer  on  the  9th  and  in  a  week  more 
please  God  shall  come  and  shake  you  by  the 
hand.  What  you  will  do  then,  of  what  help 
we  can  be  to  you,  we  will  be  able  to  devise. 
Who  can  be  of  help  in  this  grief?  God  for- 
bid you  should  not  feel  it,  and  I  sympathise 
in  it — who  recollect  my  dearest  Aunt's 

C  11  ] 


SOME  FAMILY   LETTERS 

sweet  face  when  I  came  to  her  a  child  from 
hidia ;  for  six  and  thirty  years  up  to  yester- 
day almost  always  sweet  and  kind  and  ten- 
der. O  the  pure  loving  heart!  Does  it  not 
make  yours  thrill  with  thanks  and  devout 
gratitude  to  God  our  Father,  to  think  that 
hers  was  so  guileless  and  gentle,  so  full  of 
dear  kindness  to  all  human  creatures,  as 
well  as  to  her  children  and  to  me  who  am 
almost  one  of  them.  As  we  love  and  bless 
them  when  they  are  gone :  surely  we  may 
hope  that  their  love  too  for  us  still  endures 
in  yonder  awful  Future  into  which  the  Divine 
Goodness  has  called  them.  I  sit  at  the  paper 
and  don't  know  what  to  write.  I  pray  God 
to  amend  my  life  and  purify  it  against  the 
day  when  I  shall  be  called  to  go  whither  my 
dearest  Aunt  has  preceded  us.  Can't  you 
imagine  her  reunion  with  those  she  contin- 
ued to  love  after  their  departure  with  such 
a  beautiful  fidelity  —  the  beloved  father, 
husband,  children  who  have  gone  before? 
My  dear  old  William  whose  children  you 

[    12   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

watch  over  so  fondly  will  bless  and  love  his 
sisters  for  their  care  of  them  and  his  mother. 
You  will  keep  your  hearts  up  for  those  in- 
nocent little  girls.  Dearest  Charlotte  and 
Jane,  I  know  no  one  can  tell  you  how  to  do 
your  duty.  I  am  sure  you  will  be  cheerful 
and  thank  God  humbly  for  my  dear  dear 
Aunt's  affectionate  remembrance.  The  post 
is  going  away — and  indeed  I  haven't  a 
word  more  to  say  dear  Sisters  but  that  lam 
yours  most  sincerely  and  gratefully  and 
affectionately  always. 

W.  M.  T. 

After  her  mother's  death,  Charlotte 
Ritchie  carried  on  the  hospitality  of  the 
Paris  home ;  she  led  the  life  of  a  Sister  of 
Charity  until  1879,  the  date  of  her  death  at 
12,  Rue  Lavoisier.  In  her  drawing-room 
hung  a  large  oil  portrait  of  the  ancestral 
William  Makepeace  Thackeray,'  her  grand- 

'  The  youthful  "  Elephant  Hunter  "  of  The  Thack- 
eray s  in  India. 

L  13  ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

father  and  the  noveHst's,  The  following  let- 
ter gives  me  a  pang.  Why  should  Titmarsh 
have  been  called  upon  to  give  up  the  picture 
of  his  grandfather  ?  He  seems  to  have  been 
asked  to  do  so  in  the  name  of  spring  and 
youth  and  affection.  How  soft-hearted  au- 
thors used  to  be !  The  date  is  that  of  '*  Van- 
ity Fair"! 

Young  Street, 
(postmark)  1849. 

My  Dear  Aunt,  —  Of  course  I  cede 
my  picture  to  you  with  a  very  great  deal  of 
pleasure.  I  recollect  it  quite  well  as  a  child 
in  India  and  admiring  above  all  things  how 
the  stick  was  painted  which  was  made  to  look 
as  if  it  was  polished  and  shone.  What  strange 
things  the  memory  chooses  to  keep  hold  of! 
Your  reminiscences  are  of  a  very  different 
nature  about  the  picture :  it  brings  back 
spring  and  youth  to  you  and  all  the  affec- 
tionate histories  connected  with  it ;  it  can 
only  be  an  ancestor  to  me.  ...  I  think  that 
Southampton  Row  was  the  only  part  of  my 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

youth  that  was  decently  cheerful ;  all  the 
rest  strikes  me  to  have  been  glum  as  an 
English  Sunday. 

Goodbye  dear  Aunt 
I  am  always  affectionately  yours  and  my 
Cousins' 

W.  M.  T. 

Addressed  to  Mrs.  Ritchie, 
9,  Rue  Montaigne,  Paris. 

We  must  go  back  to  the  youthful  career 
of  W.  M.  T.  with  the  next  letter,  the  first  to 
my  father  in  my  collection.  William  Ritchie 
was  just  going  up  to  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge. Thackeray  was  twenty-four.  The 
letter  contained  his  first  announcement,  if 
not  of  turning  author,  at  least  of  commencing 
a  book.  His  authorship  before  this  date  con- 
sisted of  a  few  contributions  to  a  luckless 
paper  of  which  he  became  proprietor,  and 
possibly,  not  certainly,  he  had  sent  some- 
thing to  ''Fraser"  before  this  date.  But  the 
projected  Traveller's  book  was  to  be  post- 

[    15   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

poned  this  year  by  his  engagement  to  Miss 
Shawe  and  the  following  by  his  marriage 
with  her.  It  was,  however,  to  be  written  and 
published  as  "Cornhill  to  Cairo"  in  1845. 
Thackeray  seldom  penned  a  scheme  in  the 
air:  deed  always  followed  the  word. 

Paris,  Sept.,  1835. 

My  Dear  William,  —  The  thing  is  im- 
possible—  I  am  tied  to  my  Mama's  tail,  and 
must  maintain  myself  in  this  position  for 
some  weeks  longer.  We  are  going  I  believe 
to  Strasburg,  whence  it  is  my  intent  to  voy- 
age via  Munich  to  across  the  Tyrol  into  It- 
talyQ5zV].  Besides  this  I  am  arrived  at  such 
a  pitch  of  sentimentality  ( for  a  girl  without 
a  penny  in  the  world )  that  my  whole  seyn, 
etre,  or  being,  is  bouleverse  or  capsized  —  I 
sleep  not  neither  do  I  eat,  only  smoke  a  lit- 
tle and  build  castles  in  the  clouds ;  thinking 
all  day  of  the  propriety  of  a  sixieme,  boiled 
beef  and  soup  for  dinner,  and  the  possession 
of  the  gal  of  my  art.  This  must  account  for 

[    16] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

my  neglect  of  Jane,'  which  has  been  shame- 
ful, the  fact  is  that  1  have  been  so  busy  of 
evenings  uttering  the  tenderest  sentiments 
in  the  most  appropriate  language,  that  I 
have  never  had  the  heart  to  disturb  her 
among  her  virgin  companions  —  God  knows 
how  it  will  end,  I  will,  if  I  can,  bolt  before  I 
have  committed  myself  for  better  for  worser. 
But  I  don't  think  that  I  shall  have  the  power. 
My  mama  has  given  me  a  five  franc  piece 
to  amuse  myself  with,  and  stop  away  for  a 
day,  but  like  the  foolish  fascinated  moth  I 
flickers  round  the  candle  of  my  love. 

I  suppose  you  go  up  in  October  —  I  would 
write  you  some  very  delightful  moral  sen- 
timents on  the  occasion  only  you  see  I  am 
in  such  a  state  of  mental  exhaustion  that  it 
is  impossible  to  form  connected  sentences, 
much  more  to  pour  into  your  astonished  ear 
the  sound  of  sonorous  moralities  which  are 

'  Jane  Ritchie  was  then  a  pupil  at  a  rather  famous 
school,  kept  by  Madame  Martinez,  connected  with  the 
banished  court  of  Charles  X. 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

likely  to  have  an  influence  on  your  heart  — 
only,  my  dear  fellow,  in  the  name  of  the 
Saints,  of  your  mother,  of  your  amiable  fam- 
ily, and  the  unfortunate  cousin  who  writes 
this  — keep  yrself  out  of  DEBT  —  and  to 
do  this  you  must  avoid  the  dinnerparties  and 
the  rowing  ( boating)  men  —  however,  you 
will  see  John  Kemble  who  (particularly 
when  he  is  drunk)  will  give  you  the  finest 
advice  on  these  and  other  moral  and  religious 
points. 

I  look  forward  with  a  good  deal  of  pleas- 
ure to  my  trip.  I  am  sure  it  would  do  you 
much  more  good  to  come  with  me,  than  you 
can  get  from  all  the  universities  in  Christen- 
dom. I  purpose  going  from  Munich  to  Ven- 
ice by  what  I  hear  is  the  most  magnificent 
road  in  the  world  —  then  from  Venice  if  I 
can  effect  the  thing,  I  will  pass  over  for  a 
week  or  so  into  Turkey,  just  to  be  able  to 
say  in  a  book  that  I  have  been  there  — after 
which  I  will  go  to  Rome,  Naples,  Florence, 
and  if  possible   pay  a   visit  to  dear  Mrs. 

[    18   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Langslow,  who  considering  all  things  will  I 
am  sure  be  charmed  to  see  me  —  then  I 
will  go  to  England  book  in  hand,  I  will  get 
three  hundred  guineas  for  my  book  —  then 
I  will  exhibit  at  the  Water  Colour  Society, 
and  sell  my  ten  drawings  forthwith,  then  I 
will  mar  .   .   . 

You  recollect  the  picture  of  Jeannette  and 
her  pot-au-lait  on  the  Boulevards,  as  like- 
wise the  milk  pail  of  Alnaschar  in  the  A. 
Nights,  if  you  don't,  Tony  will  tell  you. 
Give  my  love  to  him,  and  aunt  and  every- 
body. I  am  going  to  write  to  Frank '  ( for 
whom  I  have  bought  a  plan  of  the  battle  of 
Wynendael)  so  I  need  not  impart  to  you 
any  of  the  affectionate  remarks,  which  I  in- 
tend making  to  him.  God  bless  you  my  dear 
William,  I  will  write  to  you  sometimes  on 

'  The  Reverend  F.  Thackeray,  Rector  of  Broxbourne, 
Herts,  author  of  the  Life  of  Chatham  and  father  of  the 
Reverend  F.  St.  John  Thackeray.  This  uncle,  great  in 
genealog}',  may  interest  lovers  of  Esmond^  for  he  drew 
W.  M.  T.'s  attention  in  youth  to  the  command  of  Mar- 
shal Webb,  his  ancestor,  at  the  battle  of  Wynendael. 

C   19] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

my  travels,  and  when  I  am  settled  my  wife 
will  always  be  happy  to  see  you  at  tea. 
Your  loving  Cousin, 

W.  M.  Thackeray. 

Thackeray's  marriage  took  place  in  the 
following  August,  1836.  The  same  autumn 
he  brought  "  the  diminutive  part  of  me,"  — 
as  he  wrote  accepting  his  aunt's  —  Mrs. 
Ritchie's — invitation  to  stay  with  her  and 
her  husband  at  their  country-house  at  "les 
Thermes,"  now  a  part  of  Paris.  Mrs.  Thack- 
eray's carefully  trained  voice  and  charm  in 
singing  was  long  remembered  by  all  who 
heard  her  at  "les  Thermes  "  or  in  Paris, 
where  the  young  couple  lived  through  a 
winter  in  the  Rue  Saint-Augustin. 

And  then  their  home  was  in  Great  Coram 
Street,  London,  and  there  are  pretty  de- 
scriptions of  their  eldest-born  written  by 
the  young  father  and  mother  to  "Aunt 
Ritchie."  The  little  two-months-old  Annie 
had  "a.  smile  of  the  greatest  sweetness  "  ; 

:  20  ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

at  six  months  she  seemed  to  understand  her 
parents  and  to  attempt  to  express  her  sym- 
pathy. The  letters  of  the  next  year  on 
family  affairs  are  seldom  without  Thack- 
erayana.  But  for  the  sake  of  wife  and  two 
children  he  was  full  of  the  necessity  of  re- 
garding authorship  as  business.  *' Punch" 
was  started,  and  the  wonder  is  that  he  found 
time  for  the  exquisitely  penned  and  neatly 
folded  family  notes  of  that  time.  In  the  year 
which  dates  the  following  letter,  *'  Vanity 
Fair"  was  begun.  It  was  but  an  ebauche 
without  a  name.  But  do  not  the  forms  vi- 
gnetted in  the  following  jottings  from  Ma- 
rienburg  seem  to  beckon  us  forwards  into 
"Vanity  Fair  "  ? 

Marienburg,  Boppart-on-the-Rhine, 

19th  August,  l84l. 

My  Dear  Aunt, — You  will  see  by  this 

address  to  what  an  out  of  the  way  place  we 

have  come.  It  is,  however,  one  of  the  most 

beautiful  places  in  the  world,  a  fine  air,  and 

[21   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

a  kind  of  genteel  hospital  set  up  for  the  cure 
of  almost  all  complaints  by  means  of  sweat- 
ino-  and  cold  water.  Gouts  and  rheumatisms 
and  other  inflammatory  ills  gooff  here  as  if 
by  magic.  People  begin  at  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning  to  be  wrapped  up  in  blankets 
where  they  lie  and  melt  for  four  hours,  then 
come  shower  baths,  plunging  baths,  hip 
baths,  all  sorts  of  water  taken  within  and 
without,  and  at  the  end  of  a  certain  number 
of  months  :  they  rise  up  and  walk.  .  .  .  My 
mother  is  here  whose  presence  is  the  great- 
est possible  comfort  to  me,  and  with  her  for 
a  short  time  are  my  cousin  with  her  husband 
Charles  Smyth.  They  are  two  of  the  noblest 
people  God  ever  made.  .  .  .  The  Beding- 
field  family's  arrival — delicious  rencontre! 
You  should  have  seen  Miss  Turner  skip- 
ping into  the  salon  and  as  it  were  dancing 
to  the  music  performed  there.  Time  has 
not  thinned  poor  Mrs.  Bedingfield's  hair  in 
the  least,  and  has  given  her  son  a  pair  of 
whiskers  which  protrude  from  his  chin.  .  .  . 

C22   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Mrs.  Jaffray,  whom  we  met  at  Frankfort  on 
a  short  pleasure  excursion  which  did  us  both 
good  —  and  who  meeting  me  in  the  street 
with  a  cigar,  gracefully  took  the  cigar  I  was 
smoking  out  of  my  hand,  and  flung  it  in  the 
gutter — Mrs.  Jaffray  told  me  you  were 
spending  the  summer  at  Boulogne.  I  was  at 
one  time  thinking  of  wintering  in  the  very 
same  place :  but  my  dear  mother  has  not 
seen  the  children  for  a  long  time  and  her 
heart  yearns  for  them,  and  so  we  shall  face 
the  winter  at  Paris.  ... 

Mrs.  Jaffray  is  surely  related  to  Miss 
Crawley,  whose  objections  to  Mr.  James 
Crawley's  smoking  at  Brighton  might  seem 
to  our  emancipated  age  an  exaggerated 
picture  of  manners !  Miss  Crawley  was  a 
charming  woman  in  '*  Vanity  Fair."  So  was 
Mrs.  Jaffray,  the  mother  of  handsome 
Arthur  Jaffray,  Thackeray  and  my  father's 
contemporary  and  friend,  who  constantly 
welcomed  them  in  Eaton  Square. 

C  23   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

The  qualities  of  his  own  children  and 
those  of  his  friends  are  often  given  in  traits 
described  in  Mr.  Thackeray's  letters.  There 
is  a  description  of  a  little  boy  of  two  whose 
character  we  may  guess  at  in  after  hfe.  Mr. 
Thackeray  was  often  the  guest  of  Mr.  Rus- 
sell Sturgis,  at  whose  house  London  and 
Boston  celebrities  rubbed  wits  in  their  prime. 
Mrs.  Russell  Sturgis,  always  a  chosen  friend 
and  adviser  of  Thackeray  in  his  loneliness, 
often  received  his  little  daughters,  and  one 
day  they  were  gathered  about  the  Christmas 
tree  at  the  country  home  at  Walton  with 
Julian  May  and  Howard  Sturgis.  "A  little 
boy  of  two,"  wrote  Thackeray  to  his  mother, 
"  would  have  won  your  heart  in  his  rapture 
at  the  sight  of  his  first  Xmas  tree.  When 
the  doors  were  opened  and  the  tree  stood 
up  with  all  its  lights  and  glories  he  flew  into 
the  room  and  danced  round  the  room  with  a 
chant  of  joy — *Oh  the  Kissamussa  tree  ! ' 
again  and  again  repeated.  And  when  his 
turn  came  to  receive  toys  he  begged  that 

[24] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

they  might  remain  on  the  tree  not  to  diminish 
its  splendour." 

And  here  is  a  vignette  portrait  from  a 
letter  which  follows  and  in  the  same  way 
reveals  a  temperament  easily  recognizable 
in  the  grown  woman,  as  we  recognize  it  also 
in  the  grown  man  once  depicted  in  infancy. 
It  is  that  of  a  little  girl  who  will  not  remind 
her  father  that  it  is  her  birthday.  The  letter 
is  written  to  my  aunt,  Miss  Ritchie,  in  Paris, 
when  Thackeray's  children  were  under  the 
care  of  his  mother,  Mrs.Carmichael  Smyth. 
Their  home  was  to  be  for  some  years  with 
him,  separated  as  they  were  from  their  mo- 
ther by  her  lifelong  illness. 

88  St.  James's  Street,  Wednesday. 

I  have  just  left  the  young  ladies  putting 
on  smart  frocks  to  go  out  to  dinner  with  my 
fellow  traveller  Emerson  Tennent  and  his 
family.  This  is  Anny's  birthday.  Her  father 
didn't  remember  it:  and  poor  Nanny 
would  n't  say  a  word,  but  kept  her  secret, 

L25  3 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

until  my  Mother  remembered  it.  We  have 
been  engaged  in  a  round  of  pleasures.  They 
come  and  breakfast  with  me  in  the  morn- 
ings and  we  went  to  the  Colosseum  and  the 
Zoological ;  the  Chinese  Exhibition  and  the 
Tower  were  the  points  of  attraction  yes- 
terday, and  the  evening  passed  off  with  a 
splendid  festival  at  Captain  Becher's.  The 
evening  ended  as  usual:  both  children  fell 
asleep  in  the  carriage,  and  were  borne  up 
like  a  pair  of  bundles  to  the  bedroom. 

To-day  is  the  last  of  the  fete.  At  twelve 
o'clock  one  of  the  most  splendid  one-horse 
flys  London  can  produce  is  to  waft  us  to 
Richmond,  where  we  shall  see  the  deer  in  the 
park,  and  have  a  syllabub  for  tea,  no  doubt. 
And  then  comes  to-morrow  and  the  dear 
little  souls  and  the  kind  mother  disappear  in 
the  distance  —  and  I  am  left  to  my  bachelor 
life  again.  If  I  did  not  know  how  much  bet- 
ter a  guardian  they  have  in  her  than  myself, 
they  never  should  leave  me,  and  it  would 
be  much  better  for  me  too. 

C   26   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

To  his  mother  Thackeray  wrote  many 
letters  in  this  same  vein  of  regret  during 
those  strenuous  years  when  club-hfe  was 
the  only  substitute  possible  for  home. 

The  following  letter  seems  to  have  been 
v/ritten  immediately  after  the  visit  described 
above : — 

St.  James's  Street,  1844. 

My  dearest  Mammy,  —  Your  letter 
of  Saturday  arrived  here  on  Wednesday 
morning  —  does  n't  it  seem  impudent  to  say 
I  have  had  no  time  to  answer  it  till  now? 

—  but  somehow  the  day  has  passed  and  the 
postman's  bell  stopped  ringing  and  it  was  n't 
done.  What  a  picture  you  give  of  the  place 

—  Paris!  I  wish  September  were  come.  I  will 
come  then,  please  God,  for  ten  days,  but 
shan't  be  able  to  move  until  then  except  from 
Saturday  till  Tuesday —  how  well  that  would 
have  done  for  Dieppe  and  back ;  but  it  can't 
be  helped.  I  wish  you  had  never  come,  that 's 
the  truth  —  for  I  fancied  myself  perfectly 
happy  until  then  —  now  I  see  the  difference : 

C   27] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

and  what  a  deal  of  the  best  sort  of  happiness 
it  is  God's  will  that  I  shoidd  lose.  Whitebait 
dinners  are  all  very  well,  but  —  hang  the  huts 
—  it  is  those  we  are  always  sighing  after. 
Well,  let  us  both  be  thankful  that  those  eels 
have  such  an  admirable  brown  sauce  and 
that  the  champagne  is  iced  to  a  nicety :  a  man 
can't  have  everything.  There  is  no  fun  in 
writing  this,  though  —  the  paper  gets  dim 
before  my  eyes  and  it  is  the  scene  of  parting 
over  again.  Don't  fancy  that  I'm  unhappy, 
though;  it 's  only  the  abstract  pathos  of  the 
thing  that  moves  me.  I  never  could  bear  to 
think  of  children  parted  from  their  parents 
somehow  without  a  tendency  to  blubbering; 
and  am  as  weak  to  this  day  upon  the  point, 
as  I  used  to  be  at  School.  In  the  meanwhile 
it  will  be  a  consolation  to  you  to  know  this 
tender-hearted  being  is  cruelly  hungry,  and 
in  twenty  minutes  from  this  time  will  be  on 
his  way  to  a  jollification.  God  bless  all. 

W.  M.  T. 

[28   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

From  1842  to  1846  Mr.  Thackeray  had 
no  settled  home.  But  in  that  year  he  brought 
his  two  little  daughters  to  live  with  him  at 
1 3  Young  Street,  Kensington,  and  they  were 
never  parted  again.  We  may  read  his  sou- 
venir of  his  married  home  in  his  prose  and 
verse,  and  in  the  ballad  of  the  Bouillabaisse: 

Ah  me  !  how  quick  the  days  are  flitting  ! 

I  mind  me  of  a  time  that 's  gone, 
When  here  I  'd  sit,  as  now  I  'm  sitting, 

In  this  same  place  —  but  not  alone. 

In  Young  Street, "  Vanity  Fair  "  was  pub- 
lished in  book  form  at  the  close  of  1 847,  and 
brought  Thackeray  fame  and  ease;  in  this 
house  " Pendennis "  was  finished  in  1848. 
But  the  little  daughters  were  not  yet  grown 
up  and  popularity  and  intimate  friendships 
never  compensated  for  his  home-loneliness 
of  more  than  ten  years.  True  there  is  con- 
stant mention  in  his  family  notes  from  Young 
Street  of  his  eldest  daughter,  Annie.  These 
notes  are  addressed  to  my  aunt;  they  are 
exquisitely  penned  and  folded  and  begin, 

1129] 


SOME   FAMILY  LETTERS 

**My  dear  Women,"  or  '*Mes  bonnes  cou- 
sines,"  and  contain  famil}'^  details,  and  in- 
variably tell  of  Annie's  power  of  motherli- 
ness  to  her  young  sister,  Minny,'or  promise 
of  companionship  to  himself.  But  it  was  not 
until  that  winter  in  Rome,  alluded  to  above, 
that  both  daughters  became  the  perfect  com- 
panions which  they  were  always  to  remain. 
Their  social  gifts  were  discovered  with  de- 
light by  his  friends  in  Rome.  Elizabeth  Bar- 
rett Browning  gave  them  of  her  best;  and 
Mrs.  Sartoris  introduced  them  to  the  world 
of  song  and  art.  Their  own  genuineness  was 
their  best  inspiration  with  Thackeray.  It  may 
be  said  that  from  1855  onwards  the  daugh- 
ters' converse  with  their  father  was  one  of 
the  happiest  friendships  ever  known. 

To  return  to  the  family  letters,  Thack- 
era}^  and  my  father  had  never  ceased  to  be 
linked,  though  my  father  was  four  years 
junior.  William  Ritchie  ("His  Honour,"  as 
Thackeray  named  him  when   he  became 

'   Harriet  Marian,  afterwards  Mrs.  Leslie  Stephen. 

C   30   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Legal  Member  of  Council,  and  first  remem- 
bered by  Thackeray  as  the  <' Gentleman  of 
the  Long  Robe"  in  the  nursery)  was  an 
Oppidan  at  Eton  from  1829  to  1835  in 
Holt's  House  and  M.  Dupuis's  pupil-room. 
He  had  gone  up  to  Cambridge  before  the 
traditions  of  the  famous  Fitzgerald  Thack- 
eray set  had  passed  away,  and  was  linked 
with  it  by  Tom  Taylor,  who  has  described 
the  incident  which  may  have  given  my  fa- 
ther the  name  alluded  to  below.  From  Trin- 
ity my  father  had  passed  to  the  Chambers 
in  Farrer's  Building,  Inner  Temple,  of  Mr. 
Hugh  Hill  ( known  afterwards  as  Mr.  Jus- 
tice Hugh  Hill),  a  special  pleader  of  great 
cunning,  and  read  law  with  J.  C.  Templar, 
Sir  John  Mowbray,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote, 
Lord  Cranbrook,  and  Henry  Erskine.  Wil- 
liam Ritchie  was  called  to  the  bar  in  1841, 
and  then  fell  in  love  at  the  same  age  as 
Thackeray  and  determined  his  career  there- 
by. He  relinquished  friends  and  promise  of 
success  at  the  English  Bar.  He  was  married 

[  31   ] 


SOME   FAMILY    LETTERS 

at  St.  John's  Church,  Calcutta,  January, 
1846. 

The  following  letter,  chosen  among  sev- 
eral, alludes  to  my  mother's.  Miss  Trim- 
mer's, voyage  out  to  India  before  her  mar- 
riage :  — 

Late  Autumn,  1845. 

My  dear  Charlotte:  —  I'veonlytime 
as  usual  for  a  line  and  as  usual  too  to  thank 
you  for  all  your  kindness. 

So  Augusta  has  sailed  to  her  Villiam. 
Happy  rogue !  Everybody  who  comes  from 
Calcutta  brings  the  best  accounts  of  him 
and  his  popularity  and  his  talents  and  his 
prosperity.  The  old  Cambridge  men  I 
meet  continually  ask  *'how  is  Gentleman 
Ritchie  ? "  I  hope  he  '11  be  as  rich  as  FoUett, 
though  I  'm  sure  he  '11  never  be  so  stingy. 
Poor  Mr.  Langslow comes  tome  of  a  morn- 
ing and  talks  of  his  own  case  and  the  Baron 
de  Bode.  The  Hallidays  I  see  from  time  to 
time,  very  gay  and  jolly  and  kind.   I '  ve  not 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

been  able  to  see  them  much  of  late,  though, 
on  account  of  the  business  in  the  morning 
and  the  engagements  at  nights.  But  the 
season 's  over  now,  thank  God ;  and  I  shall 
get  a  little  quiet  and  leisure.  I  have  been 
bothering  my  brains  for  a  fortnight  over  a 
chapter  about  Jerusalem,  which  contains 
some  unorthodox  remarks;  but  my  dear 
old  mother  has  written  me  a  letter  so  full 
of  terror  and  expostulation,  and  dread  of 
future  consequences  for  my  awful  heresy 
that  I  have  to  cancel  it  and  begin  afresh. 
Good-bye,  dear  Charlotte.  What  a  comfort 
you  and  yours  have  been  to  me !  That 's 
what  I  think,  every  day. 

Your  affectionate, 

W.  M.  T. 

At  the  close  of  1854  my  father  became 
Advocate-General  at  the  Calcutta  Bar,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-eight.  He  enjoyed  the 
best  of  health  through  his  busiest  years  in 
India,  but  Thackeray's  serious  turn  in  Rome 

c  33  ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

had  made  him  hable  to  recurring  attacks  of 
pain  which  left  him  highly  nervous  in  con- 
valescence before  restoration  to  his  usual 
work  and  high  spirits.  The  following  letter 
was  written  in  such  a  convalescence,  when 
William  Ritchie  was  at  home  for  a  year's 
holiday :  — 

36  Onslow  SquARE,  May  25th,  1855. 

My  dear  William,  —  looo  pardons. 
Your  letter  came  when  I  was  ill  abed ;  then 
I  got  up  and  went  to  the  Derby,  which 
made  me  ill  again  for  yesterday  —  and 
when  ill  pen  writing  makes  me  so  much 
worser  that  I  avoid  all  I  can  of  it.  The  girls 

and  I  will  make  you  and  A (to  whom 

in  this  familiar  manner  I  send  my  love)  as 
comfortable  as  we  can.  Your  quarters  will 
be  awfully  narrow,  but  with  a  contented 
mind,  why  should  you  not  bear  them  for  a 
brief  space  ?  There  will  be  let  offs  not  only 
on  the  3 1  St  of  May,  but  on  the  ensuing 
day.   We  find  it  cheaper  to  give  double- 

C  34  ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

barrelled  dinner  parties,  though  deucedly 
unpleasant  to  give  one  or  two.  The  house 
is  turned  upside  down,  frantic  knife-clean- 
ing goes  on,  sham  footmen  prowl  about  the 
premises  —  I  wish  we  might  do  it  at  an 
hotel.  My  rest  is  destroyed  and  my  mind 
troubled  with  fear  and  fluster  a  week  off. 
As  soon  as  I  have  written  this  little  note 
(and  about  18  more)  I  am  going  to  take  a 
portmanteau  into  the  country  somewhere, 
and  stay  away  for  three  or  four  days  and 
recruit.  I  asked  William  Sterling  to  meet 
you,  but  my  dinners  ain't  good  enough  for 
him  or  he  is  going  out  of  town.  But  you  will 
see  a  few  small  lions,  and  I  hope  we  shall 
get  on. 

At  the  Derby  I  was  next  carriage  to 
Mowbray  Morris,'  who  looked  very  lan- 
guid and  handsome  drinking  champagne 
and  eating  venison  pie  as  he  lay  back  in 
his  barouche.  I  believe  it  was  a  very  good 
race.  I  lost  my  money,  though  —  sixpence 

'  Editor  of  the  Times  with  Mr.  Delane  from  1860. 

[35 : 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

to  Sir  Edwin  Landseer,   who  backed  the 
favorite  against  the  field. 

What  frivohty  is  this  I  write  !  Sir,  I  am 
not  thinking  of  this,  but  of  those  1 8  other 
letters  which  I  have  to  produce  before  I  go 
country  wards.  In  London  there's  no  affec- 
tion, no  leisure,  no  relationship  —  nothing 
but  fierce  business  and  then  fierce  pleasure, 
and  then  a  spell  of  illness  during  which  one 
has  leisure  to  think  a  little.  I  declare  I  have 
quite  enjoyed  2  or  3  days  this  past  week 
which  kept  me  in  bed.  .  .  .  Well,  it  will  be 
pleasant  to  see  a  great  Colony  of  Ritchies 
in  the  sunshine  by  the  sea-shore.  And  O 
how  I  wish  those  2  dinner  parties  were  over, 
don't  you  ? 

I  send  my  love  to  all,  and  am  always  my 
dear  old  William's 

Affectionate, 

W.  M.  T. 

P.S.   He  proceeds  with  the  next  letter, 

**  Sir,  in  answer  to  your  proposal  from  the 

r 

L 


^   36   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Hull  Royal  Literary  Society  I  regret,  etc., 
etc." 

When  the  spell  of  illness  was  over, 
nerves  were  overcome  by  splendid  spirits, 
and  in  the  next  year  there  is  actually  a  sug- 
gestion of  coming  out  to  India. 

3  Randolph  Crescent,  Edinburgh, 
Nov.  24th,  1856. 

My  dear  Villikins,  —  Read  over  the 
enclosed  respectful  document  and  think  in 
your  noble  mind  whether  it  is  likely  to  serve 
my  friend  Captain  Blackwood,  by  being 
sent  to  its  address  or  put  in  the  fire — that 
is  if  you  have  fires  at  Calcutta  —  though 
of  course  you  do  to  burn  your  widows  on. 
Blackwood  is  a  friend  of  mine,  a  good  offi- 
cer, a  most  worthy  gentleman,  and  I  am 
very  anxious  to  serve  him  —  Can  you  ? 

My  friend  Davison  goes  to  Madras  — 
and  now  I  really  think  I  must  come  to  my 
native  country.  Yardley  at  Bombay,  Davus 

C   37  : 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

at  Madras,  and  you  and  Arthur  Duller  at 
Calcutta  —  what  a  jolly  Winter  I  and  the 
girls  might  have !  Let  us  finish  the  "  forth- 
coming serial"  and  then  see. 

I  saw  your  dear  little  ones  at  Paris  not 
very  long  ago  —  Charlotte  and  Jane  ( how 
surprised  we  were  to  find  her  back ! )  will 
tell  you  how  my  Mamma  fell  ill  and  my 
girls  were  disappointed  of  their  trip  to  Scot- 
land. My  orations  is  a  great  success  here, 
and  I  am  coining  money  at  present  at  the 
rate  of  about  half  an  Advocate-General,  say 
5  or  £600  a  month.  I  get  £600  for  my 
next  book.  Cock  a  doodle  doo!  The  family 
is  looking  up  isn't  it?  I  send  my  best  love 
to  A.  and  am 

Yours,  my  dear  old  William,  always, 

W.  M.  T. 

Before  my  father,  William  Ritchie,  left 
England  we  were  all  gathered  in  an  Isle  of 
Wight  home,  with  our  beloved  cousins..  The 
two  Williams  tower  up  in  my  memory  in 

C   38   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

the  family  circle ;  and  it  was  then  we  little 
Parisians  had  our  first  glimpse  of  London, 
from  Mr.  Thackeray's  hospitable  London 
house.  How  vividly  I  recall  a  summer's 
evening  in  Onslow  Square,  with  the  French 
v^indows  wide  open  to  the  balcony,  and  an 
early  dinner,  at  which  Mr.  Thackeray  and 
his  young  daughters  entertained  Mr.  Mas- 
kelyne  Scott,  and  my  sister  and  I  wore 
flowers  in  our  hair  and  were  called  Spanish 
ladies  by  the  guest !  Those  Early  Victorian 
times  seem  very  spoiling  to  young  people 
as  I  look  back  upon  them,  but  the  ecole  sen- 
timentale  was  counteracted  by  a  school  of 
manners  which  I  fancy  was  more  prominent 
at  that  day  amongst  the  young  than  in  our 
time.  This  education  lay  in  the  social  hu- 
mours of  *'  Punch,"  of  which  my  souvenirs 
are  redolent.  There  is  no  John  Leech  to-day 
to  draw  the  absurdities  of  the  rising  genera- 
tion. Leech's  Juvenilia  are  for  ever  associated 
with  the  volumes  of  *'  Punch  "  in  Mr.Thack- 
eray's  library.   We  used  to  draw  them  out 

C   39   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

of  the  orderly  shelves  and  read  them  in  the 
shade  of  Onslow  Square.  We  identified  him 
and  his  friends  with  "Punch."  Thackeray 
had  retired  from  it  the  year  before,  but  the 
classic  figure  of  Mr.  Punch  stood  on  his 
writing-table  in  solid  silver,  the  gift  of 
'*  Punch's  "  Edinburgh  readers,  and  the  sil- 
ver Punch  contained  ink  and  we  looked  on 
that  ink  as  charmed.  And  our  profound 
studies  in  "Punch"  acquainted  us  with  an- 
other friend  of  Mr.Thackeray,  who  has  also 
been  a  friend  to  the  youths  of  England, 
Richard  Doyle,  though  he  too  had  resigned 
his  post  on  the  staff'  for  the  sake  of  his  re- 
ligion. His  illustrations  of  Mr.Thackeray's 
Rebecca  Rowena,  alas !  put  us  off'from  Scott, 
and  I  have  no  defence  of  parody  in  the  gen- 
eral plea  for  humour  in  the  schoolroom  and 
in  the  first  peep  into  life. 

After  that  one  glimpse  into  the  busy  and 
fascinating  life  of  Onslow  Square,  we  re- 
turned to  the  Isle  of  Wight,  but  afterwards 
there  was  an  exchange  of  houses  between 

C  40 ;] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Mr.  Thackeray  and  my  father;  we  spent 
some  time  in  Onslow  Square  whilst  Mr. 
Thackeray  finished  "The  Newcomes"  at 
36 y  Rue  Codot  de  Mauvoi. 


II 

TWO  FIRST  COUSINS  OF  THACKERAY'S 


TWO    FIRST    COUSINS    OF 
THACKERAY'S 

THE  memories  of  a  girlhood  may  pos- 
sibly be  even  of  less  value  than  the 
rigmarole  of  childhood,  but  as  they  merge 
into  girlhood  mine  are  more  and  more  seri- 
ous, concerned  as  they  are  with  the  records 
of  noble  lives  of  first  cousins  of  W.  M. 
Thackeray,  which  were  to  be  cut  short  and 
yet  to  be  held  up  to  the  world  as  full  of 
achievement.  Sir  Richmond  Shakespear, 
like  my  father,  William  Ritchie,  was  Thack- 
eray's first  cousin.  Each  was  successful  in 
his  career;  both  were  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
high  endeavour ;  and  in  death  they  were  not 
long  divided.  Must  the  narrative  be  sombre 
because  they  were  to  die  in  the  splendour  of 
their  meridian  ?  Not  necessarily,  where  re- 
ligious faith  was  deeply  rooted  in  both,  and 
where  the  exuberant  humour  inspired  by 

[45] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

Thackeray  was  in  a  measure  shared  by  my 
father. 

Sir  Richmond  Shakespear*  first  appears 
in  the  family  chronicle  in  theatricals  with 
Thackeray  when  they  were  both  home 
for  the  holidays  at  Charterhouse  in  Mrs. 
Ritchie's  house  in  Southampton  Row. 

"  William  Thackeray  often  came  to  Aunt 
Ritchie's.  He  was  full  of  humour  and  clever- 
ness, as  you  may  suppose,  and  used  to  draw 
caricatures  for  us.  He  used  also  to  act  with 
us  sometimes,  and  I  remember  him  in  a  wig 
capitally  got  up  as  Dr.  Pangloss.  My  bro- 
ther George  and  I  were  at  Charterhouse  in 
the  same  boarding-house  as  Thackeray." 

In  1829  Shakespear  went  out  from  Ad- 
discombe  to  India  in  the  Royal  Artillery. 
In  1841  he  was  knighted  on  Lord  Palm- 
erston's  recommendation,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-nine.  This  was  after  the  following 
achievement  by  Shakespear.  The  Khivan 
Turkomans  were  at  war  with  Russia;  416 

'   See  Dictionary  of  National  Biographij. 

i:  46  ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Russian  prisoners  were  at  the  mercy  of  the 
Sultan  of  Khiva.  The  task  of  their  deliver- 
ance and  conveyance  to  St.  Petersburg  fell 
to  Lieutenant  Shakespear  as  senior  sub- 
altern of  Abbott's  Battery  of  Royal  Artil- 
lery. Lieutenant  Shakespear  commanded 
the  battery  on  a  successful  mission  to  Khiva. 
A  letter  from  a  Russian  officer  describes 
"  the  Englishman  Shakespear's  march  to 
St.  Petersburg  with  the  prisoners."  In  1 842 
the  Afghanistan  Campaign  gave  him  another 
opportunity  of  distinction,  the  rescue  of 
English  prisoners  in  great  danger  from 
the  Amir.  In  1844  he  married  Sophy,  sister 
of  Sir  Rivers  Thompson. 

The  chronicle  of  Sir  R.  Shakespear's 
achievement  is  briefly  given  from  Mr. 
Thackeray's  own  pen  in  the  "  Cornhill  Mag- 
azine" for  December,  1861,  in  the  "Round- 
about Paper"  on  Letts's  Diary:  — 

"  And  now,  brethren,  may  I  conclude  this 
discourse  with  an  extract  out  of  that  great 
diary,  the  newspaper?  I  read  it  butyester- 

[47  ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

day,a!Kl  it  has  mingled  with  all  my  thoughts 
since  then.  Here  are  the  two  paragraphs 
which  appeared  following  each  other:  — 

"'Mr.  RQtchie],  the  Advocate-General 
of  Calcutta,  has  been  appointed  to  the  post  of 
Legislative  Member  of  the  Council  of  the 
Governor-General. ' 

*<*  Sir  Richmond]  S[^hakespear],  Agent 
to  the  Governor-General  for  Central  India, 
died  on  the  29th  of  October,  of  bronchitis/ 

'« These  two  men,  whose  different  fates  are 
recorded  in  two  paragraphs  and  half  a  doz- 
en lines  of  the  same  newspaper,  were  sis- 
ters' sons.  In  one  of  the  stories  by  the  pre- 
sent writer,  a  man  is  described  tottering  *  up 
the  steps  of  the  ghaut,'  having  just  parted 
with  his  child,  whom  he  is  despatching  to 
England  from  India.  I  wrote  this,  remem- 
bering in  long,  long  distant  days,  such  a 
ghaut,  or  river-stair,  at  Calcutta;  and  a  day 
when,  down  those  steps,  to  a  boat  which 
was  waiting,  came  two  children,  whose 
mothers  remained  on  the  shore.  One  of 

C   48   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

those  ladies  was  never  to  see  her  boy  more ; 
and  he,  too,  is  just  dead  in  India,  'of  bron- 
chitis, on  the  29th  of  October/  We  were 
first  cousins ;  had  been  Httle  playmates  and 
friends  from  the  time  of  our  birth ;  and  the 
first  house  in  London  to  which  I  was  taken 
was  that  of  our  aunt,  the  mother  of  his 
Honour  the  Member  of  Council.  His  Hon- 
our was  even  then  a  gentleman  of  the  long 
robe,  being,  in  truth,  a  baby  in  arms.  We 
Indian  children  were  consigned  to  a  School 
of  which  our  deluded  parents  had  heard  a 
favourable  report,  but  which  was  governed 
by  a  horrible  little  tyrant,  who  made  our 
young  lives  so  miserable  that  I  remember 
kneeling  by  my  little  bed  of  a  night,  and  say- 
ing, *  Pray  God,  I  may  dream  of  my  mother ! ' 
Thence  we  went  to  a  public  school,  and  my 
cousin  to  Addiscombe  and  to  India. 

«*For  thirty-two  years,'  the  paper  says, 
*Sir  Richmond  Shakespear  faithfully  and 
devotedly  served  the  Government  of  India, 
and  during  that   period  but  once  visited 

[49   1 


SOME   FAMILY  LETTERS 

England,  for  a  few  months  and  on  public 
duty.  .  .   .' 

"When  he  came  to  London  the  cousins 
and  playfellows  of  early  Indian  days  met 
once  again,  and  shook  hands.  *Can  I  do  any- 
thing for  you?'  I  remember  the  kind  fellow 
asking.  He  was  always  asking  that  question 
of  all  kinsmen ;  of  all  widows  and  orphans ; 
of  all  the  poor;  of  young  men  who  might 
need  his  purse  or  his  service.  I  saw  a  young 
officer  yesterday  to  whom  the  first  words 
Sir  Richmond  Shakespear  wrote  on  his 
arrival  in  India  were,  *  Can  I  do  anything 
for  you  ? '  His  purse  was  at  the  command  of 
all.  His  kind  hand  was  always  open.  It  was 
a  gracious  fate  which  sent  him  to  rescue 
widows  and  captives.  Where  could  they 
have  had  a  champion  more  chivalrous,  a 
protector  more  loving  and  tender? 

"  I  write  down  his  name  in  my  little  book, 
among  those  of  others  dearly  loved,  who,  too, 
have  been  summoned  hence.  And  so  we  meet 
and  part ;  we  struggle  and  succeed ;  or  we  fail 

C   50^ 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

and  drop  unknown  on  the  way.  As  we  leave 
the  fond  mother's  knee,  the  rough  trials  of 
childhood  and  boyhood  begin ;  and  then  man- 
hood is  upon  us,  and  the  battle  of  life,  with 
its  chances,  perils,  wounds,  defeats,  distinc- 
tions. And  Fort  William  guns  are  saluting 
in  one  man's  honour,  while  the  troops  are 
firing  the  last  volleys  over  the  other's  grave 
— over  the  grave  of  the  brave,  the  gentle, 
the  faithful  Christian  soldier." 

William  Ritchie  survived  Richmond 
Shakespear  six  months.  A  short  attack  of 
peritonitis  carried  him  off  at  the  height  of  his 
success  as  Legal  Member  of  Council  in  Lord 
Canning's  Government.  In  full  conscious- 
ness of  the  approach  of  death  he  welcomed 
Lady  Shakespear,  who  entered  his  room, 
and  said  almost  exultingly,  "I  am  dying;  I 
am  going  to  Richmond." 

The  news  of  my  father's  death  reached 
our  Paris  home  before  we  had  heard  of  his 
illness.  It  was  on  the  following  morning 
that  we  were  all  assembled   at  morning 

C   51   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

prayers  when  the  door  opened  and  a  tall 
figure  stood  amongst  us.  It  was  Thacke- 
ray. He  went  to  the  armchair  and  took  my 
aunt's  hands  and  those  of  her  sister  and 
sat  thus  with  them,  and  when  we  came  to 
wish  him  good-bye  at  the  time  for  our 
walking  he  kissed  our  little  black  gloves. 
He  had  come  over  immediately  on  hearing 
such  tidings  —  unbidden,  yet  hardly  unex- 
pected, like  a  brother  at  need,  a  friend  who 
could  discern  our  hearts.  I  think  it  was  in 
a  later  *'  Roundabout  Paper  "  that  he  wrote : 
"Those  who  are  gone  you  love.  Those 
who  departed  loving  you,  love  you  still, 
and  you  love  them  always.  They  are  not 
really  gone,  those  dear  hearts  and  true; 
they  are  only  gone  into  the  next  room ;  and 
you  will  presently  get  up  and  follow  them, 
and  yonder  door  will  close  upon  you,  and 
you  will  be  no  more  seen." 


Ill 

THACKERAY  AT  PALACE  GREEN 


THACKERAY  AT  PALACE  GREEN 

JUNE,    1862-CHRISTMAS,    1863 

WHEN  the  summer  came  round  and 
my  mother  had  returned  from  India 
to  make  our  home  henceforth  in  England, 
we  often  stayed  in  the  beautiful  house  in 
Palace  Green  where  Mr.  Thackeray  was 
settled  with  his  daughters  from  New  Year, 
1862.  I  have  a  very  distinct  impression  of 
an  unparalleled  intercourse  and  of  a  quiet 
home  atmosphere  where  a  busy  novelist 
possessed  his  soul,  if  not  in  peace  in  the 
thick  of  the  London  season,  yet  with  some 
detachment.  But  it  is  only  possible  here  to 
place  impressions  in  their  successive  order, 
and  if  their  main  feature  does  not  appear 
amidst  the  incidents  that  were  so  amusing 
at  the  time,  the  fault  is  in  the  narrator. 

One  beautiful  summer's  evening  my  sis- 
ter Mrs.  Freshfield  and  I  reached  the  house 

[  55  ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

having  crossed  with  a  maid  from  Paris,  and 
were  welcomed  by  our  beloved  cousins, 
Anny  and  Minny,  and  there  was  Mr. 
Thackeray  receiving  us  and  laughing  at  our 
adventures,  especially  in  the  four-wheeler 
which  had  stopped  at  a  public-house  to  ask 
its  way  to  "  Mr.  Thackeray's  house  in  Palace 
Green."  And  he  was  not  known  at  that 
place  of  refreshment. 

The  house-warming  had  not  long  taken 
place,  and  of  the  humours  of  famous  the- 
atricals —  when  *'  Lovel  the  Widower  "  was 
acted  by  amateurs  as  the  "  Wolves  and  the 
Lamb"  —  I  retain  a  few  stories.  Mr.  Bon- 
nington  had  not  uttered  one  word  of  the 
part  assigned  to  the  author  in  the  play-bill, 
but  only  appeared  in  spectacles  before  the 
fall  of  the  curtain,  to  give  his  blessing  to 
the  company.  Herman  Merivale  had  been 
stage-manager.  Quintin  Twiss,  the  long- 
remembered  A.  D.  C.  actor  of  that  time, 
had  played  inimitably.  My  cousin,  Miss 
Bella  Bayne,  had  been  aiifrais  of  farce  in 

[   56] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

the  play,  for  her  devotion  to  Mr.  Thackeray 
led  her  to  take  the  terribly  ungrateful  part 
of  Mrs.  Prior,  Lovel's  second  mother-in- 
law,  and  she  carried  it  through  with  such 
spirit  that  "the  little  Trojan,"  as  Mr.  Thack- 
eray named  her,  was  the  greatest  success  of 
the  play.  The  youngest  daughter  of  the 
house,  Minny  Thackeray,  afterwards  Mrs. 
Leslie  Stephen,  with  a  complexion  of  milk 
and  roses,  and  sunny  nineteen-year-old  hair, 
had  impersonated  Lovel's  deposed  mother- 
in-law  with  a  front,  and  irresistible  wit.  She 
often  read  bits  of  the  play  to  us  that  sum- 
mer, reproducing  the  dramatic  Bella's  cres- 
cendo of  voice  in  the  scene,  when,  as  Mrs. 
Prior,  she  revealed  to  Lovel's  family  that 
his  fiancee,  her  daughter,  once  danced  on 
the  boards  and  adorned  the  ballet  at  Drury 
Lane.  Mrs.  Leslie  Stephen  had  a  beautiful 
and  flexible  voice,  most  apt  at  reproducing 
comedy  but  low-toned  in  a  crowd,  and  espe- 
cially making  itself  felt  amongst  many 
voices,  as  John  Addington  Symonds  once 

C  57  : 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

pointed  out  to  me.  She  had  the  gift  of  cre- 
ating cahn. 

Another  gay  party  given  at  Palace  Green 
as  a  sort  of  furniture-warming  —  for  the 
theatrical  invitations  had  been  sent  for 
"the  house  of  W.  EMP-TY  "  —  was  a 
cooking-party,  when  the  gentlemen  and  the 
ladies  cooked  the  supper.  On  this  occasion 
Mr.  Thackeray  made  the  salad  in  his  library 
with  the  following  dictum  :  *'  When  you 
think  you  have  put  in  enough  oil,  drop  in 
as  much  more."  Was  it  on  this  occasion 
that  Mrs.  Anthony  Trollope  was  delighted 
when  he  held  up  his  glass  to  her  in  his  ovm 
house,  and  said,  "  Wife  of  my  rival,  I  drink 
to  thee ! " 

Very  soon  we  were  absorbed  into  the  rou- 
tine at  Palace  Green.  It  began  early.  Mr. 
Thackeray  breakfasted  alone,  but  never 
failed  to  pay  his  daughters  a  visit  at  break- 
fast, pacing  the  floor,  having  begun  work 
an  hour  or  two  before. 

After  breakfast  we  girls  had  a  choice 

c  58 : 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

of  rooms  to  sit  in  —  four  pleasant  sitting- 
rooms,  circled  round  the  pretty  marble- 
paved  hall.  The  house  within  and  without 
was  redolent  with  eighteenth-century  as- 
sociations —  Kensington  Palace  and  the 
tall  elms  opposite  the  windows,  and,  ranged 
upon  the  walls  within,  old  English  look- 
ing-glasses, cabinets  filled  with  Dresden 
and  Chelsea  china,  quaint  old  high-backed 
chairs  and  settees,  and  amongst  the  small 
collection  of  masters,  which  included  a 
Watteau  and  a  Cuyp  and  a  great  picture 
of  Queen  Anne  by  De  Troy,  a  picture  of 
a  little  boy  with  a  bird,  full  of  fascination. 
He  held  me  with  a  brilliant  charm  before 
knowing  his  history.  This  is  the  picture  of 
Louis  XVII,  with  the  ribbon  of  the  Order 
of  the  Saint-Esprit.  It  is  named  to-day  a 
Greuze,  painted  in  his  early  manner  at  the 
Tuileries  when  Marie  Antoinette  was  keep- 
ing her  mock  court  there.  Denis  Duval, 
who  was  soon  to  become  like  an  inhabitant 
of  Mr.  Thackeray's  house,  would  have  told 

C   59   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

US  of  his  sight  of  the  French  Queen ;  his 
Memoirs  were  cut  short ;  we  have  lost 
what  surely  would  have  been  a  very  pa- 
thetic picture  of  Marie  Antoinette  when 
Cardinal  de  Rohan,  who  also  comes  into 
the  story  —  already  begun  at  Palace  Green 
—  was  to  be  the  cause  of  the  Calumny  of 
Europe.  The  picture  was  bought  by  Mr. 
Thackeray  in  a  hostel  in  Italy  in  1854. 
All  these  things  exercised  a  spell  which 
made  us  girls  early  devotees  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  and  its  setting  for  narrative. 

The  library,  where  the  master  of  the 
house  sat  at  work,  was  of  sufficient  length 
to  enable  him  whilst  composing  to  walk  up 
and  down,  and  out  of  the  open  window  into 
a  small  green  garden  at  the  back  of  the 
house. 

We  were  quite  unaware  at  the  time  of 
these  first  impressions  that  the  architecture 
of  the  house,  and  the  furniture  within,  all 
bore  the  stamp  of  originality  in  the  hand  of 
the  designer  and  the  collector.  There  were 

C  60  ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

of  course  collectors  of  bric-a-brac  in  the 
early  sixties,  but  the  rebuilding  of  London 
in  Queen  Anne  architecture  was  wholly  un- 
dreamt of,  and  Mr.  Thackeray's  house  and 
furniture  were  all  harmonious. 

But  to  my  narrative  of  the  Palace  Green 
days.  It  was  the  year  of  the  great  Exhibi- 
tion of  1862.  What  is  South  Kensington 
Museum  to-day  had  sprung  into  being  with 
crystal  domes.  The  afternoons  were  gener- 
ally spent  under  the  glass  domes  of  the  Ex- 
hibition, where  the  South  Kensington  Mu- 
seum now  stands.  Mr.  Thackeray  took  a 
great  interest  in  modern  designs  and  his  cult 
of  Queen  Anne  did  not  exclude  purchases  of 
modern  design.  A  clock  of  pale-green  Al- 
gerian marble,  surmounted  with  a  cup  of 
ormolu,  did  not  look  out  of  place  in  his  house 
2imongst  guhidons  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  blue  china. 

But  the  central  interest  of  that  great  Ex- 
hibition of  1 862  was  in  the  collection  of  the 
new  English  school  of  painting.  We  beheld 

C   61   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

for  the  first  time  the  pictures  of  Hunt  and 
Millais,  and  learned  that  they  were  called 
Pre-Raphaelites.  The  name  had  an  esoteric 
and  fascinating  sound.  But  I  must  hasten  to 
give  my  impression  of  a  Pre-Raphaelite  in 
the  flesh  as  he  stood  in  Mr.  Thackeray's 
house.  This  was  Mr.  John  Millais  with  the 
broad  carrure  of  shoulders  and  stature  of 
an  English  athlete,  and  the  set  of  head  and 
close  curling  hair  of  a  Greek  statue.  He  was 
then  the  hard-working  young  paterfamilias, 
not  yet  a  Royal  Academician ;  a  contributor 
to  the  *'Cornhill "  of  illustrations  of  marvel- 
lous drawing.  He  had  a  claim  to  close  kin- 
ship with  the  great  novelists  and  spoke  much 
of  their  art — of  Balzac's  in  particular.  That 
year  at  South  Kensington  gave  him  place 
with  the  great  poetic  painters.  *' Ophelia" 
and  *'The  Huguenot,"  and  above  all  "The 
Vale  of  Rest,"  painted  two  years  before  the 
date  of  the  South  Kensington  Exhibition, 
were  assembled  for  the  first  time. 

There  was  another  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 

C   62   •} 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

Brotherhood  constantly  at  Palace  Green, 
but  we  never  knew  him  in  this  character  at 
the  time.  This  was  Charles  AUston  Collins, 
the  chosen  friend,  though  so  many  years 
younger,  of  Mr.  Thackeray  in  his  later 
years.  We  only  knew  him  as  the  delight- 
ful humorist,  the  author  of  "A  Cruise  upon 
Wheels,"  with  chiselled  features  and  search- 
ing blue  eyes,  who  always  remained  grave 
whilst  others,  and  especially  very  young 
people,  roared  at  his  utterances.  His  deli- 
cate humour  appealed  in  a  higher  way  to 
the  lovers  of  literature.  Charlie  Collins,  the 
sonofCollins,R.A., — the  painter  of  "Happy 
as  a  King,"  and  many  another  English  way- 
side, —  was  all  his  life  entirely  devoted  to 
John  Millais.  "  I  love  Millais  as  if  he  were 
dead,"  was  his  utterance,  in  much  later 
years,  about  his  brother  Pre-Raphaelite  of 
his  painter  days.  Charles  Collins  had  asso- 
ciated himself  with  the  aims  of  Hunt  and 
Millais  in  their  first  creative  intensity  and 
came  in  for  his  share  of  drubs  from  the  or- 

[63   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

thodox  critics  of  1 8  5  0-5  2 .  But  he  had  given 
up  painting  for  hterature.  Of  that  past  phase 
of  Millais's  painting  he  said,  "  Millais  threw 
off  his  pedantry  like  a  Hon."  He  was  very 
much  in  sympathy  with  all  Mr.  Thackeray's 
views.  He  thought  him  a  supremely  good 
judge  of  a  picture.  But  there  was  a  penchant 
love  for  mediaeval  beauty  which  partook 
of  his  enduring  friendship  for  Hunt,  rather 
than  of  his  manhood's  worship  for  Millais 
and  perfect  sympathy  with  Thackeray. 
But  all  this  of  course  one  learnt  later  on ; 
at  that  time  Mr.  Collins  was  looked  upon 
by  ourselves  as  the  most  perfect  humorist, 
next  to  Mr.  Thackeray,  that  ever  existed. 
The  "Cruise  upon  Wheels"  best  repre- 
sents his  delicate  humour. 

One  more  painter,  Frederick  Walker 
(hardly  known  yet),  often  in  Mr.  Thacke- 
ray's house  in  1862  as  the  illustrator  of 
'*  Philip  "  in  the  *'  Cornhill,"  figures  by  the 
side  of  Millais  and  Charles  Collins.  Shy, 
golden-haired,  absorbed,  with  straight  fea- 

C   64  ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

tures  and  earnest  blue  eyes,  he  looked  as- 
tonishingly small-made  by  the  side  of  gi- 
gantic Mr.  Thackeray,  who  would  open  the 
door  into  the  room  where  his  daughters  sat, 
and  leave  Mr.  Walker  standing  and  blush- 
ing to  the  roots  of  his  hair,  with  the  door 
closed  behind  him.  ( What  Mr.  Thackeray 
said  before  he  shut  the  door  was,  **  There, 
Walker,  are  a  lot  of  pretty  girls  for  you." ) 
The  art  of  drawing  on  wood  blocks  was 
a  new  art  at  the  time.  Thackeray,  Millais, 
and  Walker  were  all  engaged  on  it.  How 
eagerly  we  looked  for  the  initial  drawings 
which  head  the  chapters  in  the  *'  Cornhill  " 
of  March,  April,  May,  and  June,  of  1863 
—  illustrations  of  '*  Denis  Duval  " ! 


IV 

LAST  MONTHS 


LAST   MONTHS 

1863 

WHEN  my  sister  and  I  returned  for 
our  summer  visit  at  Palace  Green  in 
1 863,  Mr.  Thackeray  was  at  work  upon  his 
novel  of  *'  Denis  Duval,"  and  in  the  full 
vein  of  historical  romance.  The  finished 
story  was  to  have  left  a  perfect  picture  of 
a  British  Admiral  of  the  eighteenth  century 
—  for  such  was  Denis,  who  wrote  his  Me- 
moirs at  the  age  of  seventy,  and  described 
Rye  at  Winchelsea  in  all  the  ferment  of 
George  Ill's  declaration  of  war  against 
France  during  the  revolt  of  our  colonies  in 
America. 

Denis  was  a  fascinating  boy  as  we  first 
made  his  acquaintance  at  Palace  Green.  I 
think  he  pervaded  it  for  us  that  summer. 
There  was  another  hand  of  consummate  art 
at  work  on  the  creation.  This  was  Frederick 

C   69   ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

Walker.  His  drawing  of  Denis,  entitled 
"  Denis's  Valet,"  with  his  vigorous  Amazon 
Alsatian  mother,  was  exhibited  afterwards 
as  a  water-colour;  with  one  other  illustra- 
tion of  the  splendid  romance.  These  deli- 
cate eighteenth-century  images  with  which 
one  fell  in  love  in  the  next  months  are  all 
mixed  up  with  my  souvenirs  of  very  solid 
work  and  preparation  for  a  novel  which 
was,  alas  !  to  remain  a  fragment,  but  one 
which  gives  evidence  of  the  genius  which 
inspired  all  Mr.  Thackeray's  last  months. 

Mr.  Thackeray's  morning  visit  to  his 
daughters'  breakfast-table  almost  invari- 
ably brought  news  of  the  coming  story  for 
the  "Cornhill  Magazine."  How  thrilling 
that  story  became  when  we  discovered  the 
thread  of  the  story  of  "  Denis  Duval"  may 
be  judged  by  the  details  about  which  our 
girl  breakfast-table  was  consulted. 

What  did  babies  wear  ?  They  wore  shoes 
—  and  Count  de  Saverne,  when  he  fell  in 
the  duel  with  De  la  Motte,  wore  his  child's 

[   70  ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

shoe  tied  round  his  neck,  hidden  within  his 
shirt.  <'  But,"  Mr.  Thackeray  continued, 
"  Hugo  has  got  a  shoe.  In  '  Notre  Dame 
de  Paris '  there  is  a  magtiificent  shoe !  What 
can  we  have  in  place  of  a  shoe  ? " 

A  cap,  a  bib,  a  sock  was  suggested.  It 
was  Mr.  CoUins  who  said :  "  There  is  an 
inherent  pathos  in  clothes  :  you  can't  beat 
an  old  greatcoat  for  pathetic  sentiment." 
But  it  was  found  that  nothing  could  beat  a 
shoe,  which  already  plays  a  large  part  in 
Hugo's  story  of  Esmeralda,  and  the  inci- 
dent does  not  appear  in  the  text. 

We  came  to  know  about  the  little  girl 
who  wore  the  shoe  in  "Denis  Duval." 
Charles  Dickens  wrote  in  his  criticism  : 
« There  are  two  children  in  it,  touched 
with  a  hand  as  loving  and  tender  as  ever 
father  caressed  his  little  child  with."  He 
was  thinking  of  the  scene  where  the  boy 
Denis  rescues  the  poor,  mad  countess's 
child,  left  cradled  on  a  rock  on  the  sea- 
shore, as  the  tide  came  up,  by  the  mother, 

c  71 : 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

who  has  wandered  away  in  the  night  from 
the  sheltering  of  Madame  Duval. 

Agnes  de  Saverne  afterwards  became 
the  British  Admiral's  lady.  In  her  poor 
mother,  Countess  de  Saverne's,  troubles 
we  took  a  deep  interest.  Mr.  Thackeray 
came  into  the  room  one  day  where  we  were 
sitting  with  his  daughters,  with  a  very  tragic 
look. 

<*The  Countess  is  growing  very  mad.  St. 
Sebastian  has  just  appeared  to  her  struck  all 
over  with  arrows  lookmgWke  a. fricandeau." 

In  the  story  as  it  stands  St.  Sebastian  and 
St.  Agnes  appear  to  her,  but  the  grotesque 
image  which  first  presented  itself  to  Mr. 
Thackeray  is  left  out.  He  was  looking  far 
ahead  in  the  story  when  the  band  of  smug- 
glers, who  met  at  Duval  the  Barber's  shop, 
were  to  come  into  the  naval  campaign  under 
Paul.  Mr.  Thackeray  was  still  looking  for 
the  names  of  his  Dramatis  Personse,  and  as 
we  drove  out  in  the  Julyafternoons  with  him 
he  read  every  name  over  the  shop  windows 

[  72] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

that  was  in  any  way  singular  and  suggest- 
ive. 

These  drives  were  towards  Richmond  or 
Wimbledon  in  the  garden-party  season.  The 
carriage  would  come  to  the  door  and  we  half 
children  were  packed  into  it,  and  there  we 
waited  with  our  cousins,  quite  ready  for  the 
Garden  Party,  and  not  moving  till  sometimes 
an  hour  had  passed  and  Mr.  Thackeray  ap- 
peared. His  daughters  were  delighted  as  we 
waited.  They  said,  ^'Papaisgettingonwith 
his  story."  Mr.  Thackeray  did  not  break  off 
easily  when  he  was  in  the  vein.  And  yet  how 
neat  and  methodical  was  the  page  that  he  left 
behind  him,  covered  with  those  paragraphs 
of  close  writing  that  to  this  day  form  a  pic- 
ture. There  was  hardly  an  erasure,  but  at 
times  the  page  did  not  get  covered  at  all. 

He  was  always  in  splendid  spirits  when 
we  got  off,  and  then  what  a  warm  welcome 
awaited  him,  as  I  particularly  remember,  at 
Mrs.  Prescott's  house.  The  name  of  it  has 
been  changed,  but  it  still  stands  in  the  over- 

[73] 


SOME  FAMILY   LETTERS 

shadowed  lane  that  hes  between  Barnes  Com- 
mon and  Richmond  Park.  The  lawn,  from 
which  the  slopes  of  Richmond  Park  could  be 
seen  in  vistas,  was  the  meeting-place  of  great 
hterary  friends — Tennyson,  the  Duff  Gor- 
dons, and  others. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Charles  Collins  were  almost 
part  of  the  home  circle.  She,  Dickens's 
youngest  daughter,  so  long  known  as  Mrs. 
Perugini,  the  lifelong  friend  of  Lady  Ritchie, 
was  then  the  close  friend  of  Minny  Thacke- 
ray, Mrs.  Leslie  Stephen.  Charles  Allston 
Collins  was  at  the  time  "Sir  David."  He 
went  by  the  name  of  "Jacques '  *  with  Leigh- 
ton  and  Mrs.  Sartoris,  who  were  devoted  to 
him,  but  at  Palace  Green  he  was  oftener 
called  *'  Colenso  "  —  a  name  so  in  contrast 
with  his  wise  grave  eyes  and  fastidious  sen- 
sitiveness as  to  amuse  us  deeply. 

There  was  so  much  affinity  between  the 
mind  of  Mr.  Thackeray  and  Charles  Collins, 
the  far  younger  man,  and  they  were  so 
constantly  together  in  the  last  months,  that 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

I  seem  to  be  able  to  sum  up  my  impres- 
sions of  Mr.  Thackeray's  views  and  philo- 
sophy of  life,  by  comparing  them  with  those 
of  the  younger  man. 

Both  were  imbued  in  the  highest  degree 
with  the  romance  and  poetic  adventure  of 
life,  but  both  had  tasted  deeply  of  its  strug- 
gle, also  of  the  mediocrity  of  men.  Nature 
had  gifted  them  both  with  talents  of  humor- 
ous delineation,  in  Mr.  Thackeray's  case  of 
consummate  satire.  But  both  had  attained 
that  perfect  discrimination  which  made 
them  often  more  tolerant  than  smaller 
men. 

Charles  Collins,  who  lost  his  health,  and 
bore  great  suffering  with  resignation  and 
spirit,  never  let  illness  divide  him  from  his 
friends,  young  or  old,  grave  or  gay.  Mr. 
Thackeray,  with  far  more  physical  strength, 
higher  spirits,  and  a  gift  of  burlesque  fancy 
which  made  humanity  more  grotesque  to 
him  than  to  the  sense  of  most,  yet  deserved 
that  epitaph  which  Charles  Collins  often 

[   75  ] 


SOME  FAMILY  LETTERS 

pointed  out  in  the  poem  of  Leigh  Hunt  as 
the  finest  a  man  could  attain  to  :  — 

Write  me  as  one  that  loved  his  fellow  men. 

Our  last  visit  to  Palace  Green  was  in  the 
autumn  of  1863. 

These  early  impressions  became  mem- 
ories full  of  stimulus  and  comfort  when  Mr. 
Thackeray  passed  away  suddenly  in  full 
vigour  in  the  dawn  of  Christmas  Eve,  1 863. 
The  news  reached  us  in  the  Dorsetshire 
Manor  House  which  was  now  our  home  in 
England.  He  had  followed  the  cousins  who 
had  been  like  brothers  to  him  in  devotion,  at 
the  age  of  fifty-two,  and,  as  it  seemed  to  us, 
without  a  day's  illness.  On  his  last  birthday, 
Charlotte  Ritchie,  the  faithful  friend  of  his 
former  anxious  years,  had  congratulated  him 
on  the  promise  he  gave  of  long  life.  "  You 
have  passed  la  cinquantaine,  William,  —  a 
good  omen  in  our  short-lived  family."  But 
it  was  said  on  his  last  visit  to  Paris  and  to 

C   76   ] 


OF  W.  M.  THACKERAY 

the  pleasant  salon  of  the  Boulevard  Males- 
herbes.  It  was  there  that  I  heard  from  the 
lips  of  Sir  Theodore  Martin  the  grave  com- 
ment upon  Thackeray's  death  which  has  re- 
mained with  me  ever  since :  — 

*Tt  was  a  great  loss  to  literature,  because 
Thackeray  had  struck  a  new  vein  in  His- 
torical Romance  and  the  mine  was  not  ex- 
hausted. But,"  continued  Sir  Theodore, 
"  Thackeray's  death  had  wider  issues.  They 
lie  in  the  loss  to  English  literature  of  a 
high  tone  and  standard  which  have  had  in- 
estimable influence  upon  it,  the  influence 
of  a  perfect  English  gentleman." 


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